Bernd Zeimetz wrote:
>> Should I review the package descriptions in the control file too?
>
> Sure, go on. I think it was never reviewed and didn't change (much) since the
> first upload long time ago.
There were some points I wasn't sure about while I was writing this:
* does Debian gpsd support Bluetooth GPS devices?
* what's the situation with NMEA 2000?
* is it Linux-specific or will it work for the GNU/kfreeBSDs?
so I've left a few things strategically vague.
Explanations:
Package: gpsd
[...]
-Description: GPS (Global Positioning System) daemon
+Description: Global Positioning System - daemon
Standardised across the family. It's a pity I can't say "Global
Positioning System system"... any better suggestions?
- gpsd is a service daemon that monitors one or more GPSes attached to a host
- computer through serial or USB ports, making all data on the location/course/
- velocity of the sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947 of the host
- computer.
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
Mostly just to avoid the initial lowercase.
- With gpsd, multiple GPS client applications can share access to GPSes without
- contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries with a format that
- is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA 0183 emitted by most GPSes.
+ With gpsd, multiple GPS client applications can share access to devices
+ without contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries with a
+ format that is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA standard
+ emitted by most GPS devices.
Avoiding "GPSes" (multiple satnav networks?) in favour of "GPS
devices". Mind you, I like "With xyz, applications can share" - I
must remember it as a way of avoiding "xyz allows to share"!
Package: gpsd-clients
[...]
-Description: Clients for the GPS daemon
+Description: Global Positioning System - clients
And the same boilerplate edits, but otherwise unchanged.
Package: python-gps
[...]
-Description: Python interface to gpsd and testing environment
+Description: Global Positioning System - Python libraries
[...]
- This package contains a Python interface to conntect to gpsd, together with
+ This package contains a Python interface to connect to gpsd, together with
a module providing a controlled testing environment. It also ships two tools
- which utilize the interface: gpsprof for latency-profiling and gpsfake to
+ which utilize the interface: gpsprof for latency-profiling, and gpsfake to
simulate a GPS by playing back a logfile.
Package: libgps18
[...]
-Description: C library for communicating with GPS devices
+Description: Global Positioning System - library
Standardising. Then I've inserted the gpsd boilerplate paragraph,
instead of cramming a definition into the explanation of the
high-level interface.
- libgps is a service library for querying GPS devices. There are two
- interfaces supported by it:
- * A high-level interface that goes through gpsd, a service daemon that
- monitors one or more GPS devices. It is intended for concurrent use by
- several applications.
- * A low-level interface that speaks directly with the serial or USB
- device to which the GPS is attached.
+ This package provides libgps, a C service library for querying GPS
+ devices. It supports both a low-level interface, which communicates
+ directly with the device to which the GPS is connected, and a high-level
+ interface, which goes through gpsd and is intended for concurrent use by
+ several applications.
Too many indents, but I don't like two-bullet lists anyway.
Low-level first just because it's a shorter clause.
Package: libgps-dev
[...]
-Description: C library for communicating with GPS devices (development files)
+Description: Global Positioning System - development files
Standardising.
- libgps is a service library for querying GPS devices. There are two
- interfaces supported by it:
[...]
Presumably anyone who wants to install libgps-dev will already know
this; I replaced it with the boilerplate paragraph then left the
dev-package-specific bit unchanged.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package

Source: gpsd
Section: misc
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Bernd Zeimetz <bzed@debian.org>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5.0.61), po-debconf, dpkg-dev (>= 1.14.8),
quilt, autotools-dev,
python-all-dev, python-support (>= 0.4),
xsltproc, docbook-xsl, docbook-xml,
libxt-dev, lesstif2-dev, libxaw7-dev, libncurses-dev,
libdbus-1-dev, libglib2.0-dev, libdbus-glib-1-dev, makedev,
lsb-release
Standards-Version: 3.8.1
Homepage: http://gpsd.berlios.de/
XS-Python-Version: all
Package: gpsd
Architecture: any
Depends: python, netbase, lsb-base (>= 3.2-13), ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Recommends: udev
Breaks: ${gpsd:Breaks}
Suggests: gpsd-clients
Description: Global Positioning System - daemon
The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
With gpsd, multiple GPS client applications can share access to devices
without contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries with a
format that is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA standard
emitted by most GPS devices.
Package: gpsd-clients
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Suggests: python-gps, gpsd
Description: Global Positioning System - clients
The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package contains auxiliary tools and example clients for monitoring and
testing gpsd.
Package: python-gps
Architecture: any
Section: python
Replaces: gpsd-clients (<< 2.34.dfsg-1)
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, ${python:Depends}
Recommends: gpsd
Provides: ${python:Provides}
Description: Global Positioning System - Python libraries
The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package contains a Python interface to connect to gpsd, together with
a module providing a controlled testing environment. It also ships two tools
which utilize the interface: gpsprof for latency-profiling, and gpsfake to
simulate a GPS by playing back a logfile.
Package: libgps18
Architecture: any
Section: libs
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: Global Positioning System - library
The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package provides libgps, a C service library for querying GPS
devices. It supports both a low-level interface, which communicates
directly with the device to which the GPS is connected, and a high-level
interface, which goes through gpsd and is intended for concurrent use by
several applications.
Package: libgps-dev
Architecture: any
Section: libdevel
Depends: libgps18 (= ${binary:Version}), ${misc:Depends}
Conflicts: gpsd (<< 2.34.dfsg-1)
Description: Global Positioning System - development files
The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package contains the header and development files needed to build
programs and packages using libgps.

--- ../gpsd-2.39.pristine/debian/control 2009-06-24 12:45:37.000000000 +0100
+++ debian/control 2009-06-24 13:48:44.000000000 +0100
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
Priority: optional
Maintainer: Bernd Zeimetz <bzed@debian.org>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5.0.61), po-debconf, dpkg-dev (>= 1.14.8),
- quilt, autotools-dev,
+ quilt, autotools-dev,
python-all-dev, python-support (>= 0.4),
xsltproc, docbook-xsl, docbook-xml,
libxt-dev, lesstif2-dev, libxaw7-dev, libncurses-dev,
@@ -19,25 +19,24 @@
Recommends: udev
Breaks: ${gpsd:Breaks}
Suggests: gpsd-clients
-Description: GPS (Global Positioning System) daemon
- gpsd is a service daemon that monitors one or more GPSes attached to a host
- computer through serial or USB ports, making all data on the location/course/
- velocity of the sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947 of the host
- computer.
+Description: Global Positioning System - daemon
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
- With gpsd, multiple GPS client applications can share access to GPSes without
- contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries with a format that
- is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA 0183 emitted by most GPSes.
+ With gpsd, multiple GPS client applications can share access to devices
+ without contention or loss of data. Also, gpsd responds to queries with a
+ format that is substantially easier to parse than the NMEA standard
+ emitted by most GPS devices.
Package: gpsd-clients
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Suggests: python-gps, gpsd
-Description: Clients for the GPS daemon
- gpsd is a service daemon that monitors one or more GPSes attached to a host
- computer through serial or USB ports, making all data on the location/course/
- velocity of the sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947 of the host
- computer.
+Description: Global Positioning System - clients
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package contains auxiliary tools and example clients for monitoring and
testing gpsd.
@@ -49,44 +48,40 @@
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, ${python:Depends}
Recommends: gpsd
Provides: ${python:Provides}
-Description: Python interface to gpsd and testing environment
- gpsd is a service daemon that monitors one or more GPSes attached to a host
- computer through serial or USB ports, making all data on the location/course/
- velocity of the sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947 of the host
- computer.
+Description: Global Positioning System - Python libraries
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
- This package contains a Python interface to conntect to gpsd, together with
+ This package contains a Python interface to connect to gpsd, together with
a module providing a controlled testing environment. It also ships two tools
- which utilize the interface: gpsprof for latency-profiling and gpsfake to
+ which utilize the interface: gpsprof for latency-profiling, and gpsfake to
simulate a GPS by playing back a logfile.
Package: libgps18
Architecture: any
Section: libs
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
-Description: C library for communicating with GPS devices
- libgps is a service library for querying GPS devices. There are two
- interfaces supported by it:
- * A high-level interface that goes through gpsd, a service daemon that
- monitors one or more GPS devices. It is intended for concurrent use by
- several applications.
- * A low-level interface that speaks directly with the serial or USB
- device to which the GPS is attached.
+Description: Global Positioning System - library
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
+ .
+ This package provides libgps, a C service library for querying GPS
+ devices. It supports both a low-level interface, which communicates
+ directly with the device to which the GPS is connected, and a high-level
+ interface, which goes through gpsd and is intended for concurrent use by
+ several applications.
Package: libgps-dev
Architecture: any
Section: libdevel
Depends: libgps18 (= ${binary:Version}), ${misc:Depends}
Conflicts: gpsd (<< 2.34.dfsg-1)
-Description: C library for communicating with GPS devices (development files)
- libgps is a service library for querying GPS devices. There are two
- interfaces supported by it:
- * A high-level interface that goes through gpsd, a service daemon that
- monitors one or more GPS devices. It is intended for concurrent use by
- several applications.
- * A low-level interface that speaks directly with the serial or USB
- device to which the GPS is attached.
+Description: Global Positioning System - development files
+ The gpsd service daemon can monitor one or more GPS devices connected to
+ a host computer, making all data on the location and movements of the
+ sensors available to be queried on TCP port 2947.
.
This package contains the header and development files needed to build
programs and packages using libgps.
-